“Why should I rest---- between the library and the stairs? I want to get to my room; I want to get to bed. What---- what are you standing there for, not giving me your arm? I’ll---- I’ll be on my nose---- if you don’t mind. Give me---- your arm, Meg. Meg!” The old lady gave a dull cry, and moved her left arm about as if groping for some support, though the other was clasped strongly in that of Margaret, who was holding up her aunt’s large wavering person with all the might she had. As she cried out for help, Lady Piercey sank down like a tower falling, dragging her companion with her; yet turning a last look of reproach upon her, and moving her lips, from which no sound came, with what seemed like upbraiding. There was a rush from all quarters at Margaret’s cry. Parsons and Dunning came flying, wiping their mouths, from the merry supper-table, where they had been discussing Mr. Gervase--and the other servants, in a crowd, and Gerald Piercey from the room they had just left. Margaret had disengaged herself as best she could from the fallen mass of flesh, and had got Lady Piercey’s head upon her shoulder, from which that large pallid countenance looked forth with wide open eyes, with a strange stare in them, some living consciousness mingling with the stony look of the soul in prison. Except that stare, and a movement of the lips, which were unable to articulate, and a slight flicker of movement in the left hand, still groping, as it seemed, for something to clutch at, she was like a woman made of stone. And all in a moment, without any warning; without a sign that any one understood! Parsons, wailing, said that she wasn’t surprised. Her lady had done a deal too much getting Mr. Gervase off; she had been worried and troubled about him, poor dear innocent! She hadn’t slept a wink for two nights, groaning and turning in her bed. “But, for goodness gracious sake!” cried Parsons, “some one go back to master, or we’ll have him on our ’ands, too. Mrs. Osborne, Lord bless you! go to master. You can’t be no use here; we knows what to do--Dunning and me knows what to do. Go back to Sir Giles--go back to Sir Giles! or we won’t answer for none of their lives!” “Cousin Gerald, go to my uncle. Tell him she’s a little faint. I will come directly and back you up, as soon as they can lift her. Go!” cried Margaret, with a severity that was not, perhaps, untouched, even at this dreadful moment, by a consciousness of the opinion he was supposed to have formed of her. It was as if she had stamped her foot at him, as she half-sat, half-lay, partially crushed by the fall of the old lady’s heavy body, with the great death-like face surmounted by the red ribbons of the cap laid upon her breast. Those red ribbons haunted several minds for a long time after; they seemed to have become, somehow, the most tragic feature of the scene.